I saw this idea used in a Dirk Pitt novel about 4-5 yrs ago. Clive Cussler must have had some inside info from the research world, or maybe it was just a wild ass theory that make good fiction. Truth is stranger than fiction!
Why? Because there will be nothing left after they pay legal fees, damages to IBM and have zero sales. I suppose you can file a claim against whatever money the assets that are left bring when they are auctioned off under Chapter 7. After they pay labor claims and legal fees and start working on damages you might get 50 cents. I wonder what that license looks like framed and hung up as a conversation piece! ?
You left out the part about Godzilla saving the commandos and 007 (Pierce Brosnan) from the mutant killer walruses and giant polar bears. Come to find out it was all just another hideous plot by SPECTRE and mini-me to take over the Eskimos.
The M$ suit was tried and decided under the previous administration for the most part, the case stretched on for quite a few years. Anti-trust law is very complicated, and while many cases are filed few are successful. IIRC, the whole case hinged on M$ (illegally) requiring OEMs to include Windows and Windows only on systems sold to consumers thus eliminating choice in the market. The "unbundling" was the remedy that M$ presented as it's method for showing the were not longer forcing Windows onto OEM machines, and thus making the Gov't case moot. Well, what do ya know that all this software that was "unbundled" from Windows requires some part of Windows to work, thus forcing Windows back onto the machine. It was a slick backhanded trick, and it worked!
[Side note : Whoever is the President does not write law, Congress does that. Sure the President can suggest certain things but he can rarely make them so ALONE. Seperation of powers was and is a great idea.]
I think M$ is abusing it's position but until the Gov't gets better lawyers than the ones M$ has nothing is going to happen. Remember the judge is only allowed to weigh the arguments presented, and we all know M$ is the Master at spinning things thier way via FUD and obfuscation. The Gov't lost this case, M$ didn't win it.
I recall seeing a few years back a system that would take any plastic, add a solvent, pressure and temp and out comes a medium weight oil that can be refined into whatever you like. There is also a system that takes animal byproducts [I thought they were turned into dog food?] and ends up with oil. IIRC, there was an article in Discover magazine about this. Some towns are now drilling for natural gas in old garbage dumps. Is'nt that a form of recycling?
How would you know what information was covered in an NDA unless they told you that it was. If so then they are incredibly stupid and thats the end of the interview. Plus, most companies I have worked for put NDA or "proprietary" on just about everything. I've even seem companies claiming IEEE and DOD specs, and "object oriented software develop process" are covered by NDAs when the info is public knowledge.
There has to be some measure of trust that the employee is not breaking an NDA when you hire them. If they are, and you find out and you don't do something to stop it then the hiring company is liable to damages not just the employee. Of course, if they take your technology and run off to China or Taiwan or India and use it, you don't have much chance of getting damages for voilating an NDA.
[I'm not a lawyer. I just know enough to know when I need one]
There are a lot of excellent women engineers I know that also enjoy "working with people, children and cooking". In fact, I prefer working with and strive to hire engineers who enjoy things other than "calculating stresses or thermo problems". Companies they are actually looking for more female engineers as often times they work very hard due to remove the impressions like yours that they are "having to do a man's job" (and the fact they can pay them less).
Perhaps what is meant here is that certain situations within your body could cause more (or less) of the drug to be released. I could see things like major stress, or a serious illness screwing up the body chemistry and making the dose change. Also metabolism changes such as significant weight loss/gain, menopause, puberty, etc. might also affect how the dose is released. I think there is a LOT of research to be done before the FDA will let this thing be used except in some very strict conditions. I guess it completely dissolves and you need a new one ever so often (more $$).
Considering the building was being designed probably 10 yrs ago and was already under construction on 9/11/01 I doubt the plane crash scenario was given much thought.
The WTC was built to withstand a 727, which was a 1960's era 4 engine jet, much smaller and slower than the 757s that hit the WTC. A 737 is a "baby" jet. Of course there is the 747, C-5, C-17 and some other large Russian jets which are monsters and I'm not sure you could design for a hit from on of these. Maybe there is a super-secret anti-aircraft missile system installed to prevent crashes.
I'd be more concerned with a large earthquake or super typhoon causing problems. Taiwan has both of those with some regularity.
Then wouldn't the Space Station be the highest? It has "habitable space". You said nothing about freestanding or being attached to the ground as requirements. ISS also has a hell of an observation deck, but the admission is a bit steep depening on how bad the Russians need money;)
The "Intel Inside" TV ads, and other media blasts about Intal has convinced those who make the purchasing decisions that there is only one CPU worth anything. The CxO's have been seduced by the ads (sublimal suggestions?). The fact that Intel does NOT have the best chip architecture does not matter.
Intel can supply 64-bit CPUs to HP cheaper than HP can make the Aplha and that marks the last days of the Alpha. Why make something no one wants at a cost higher than you can buy a similar product? It's good business sense, but I hate to see good technology ideas die just because they are not mainstream. Intel has a lot of power in the CPU market and they can make you an offer you can't refuse if you want to stay competitive.
Wouldn't the "reward" for finding prior art be the protection of that prior art from infringement? I agree that where BountyQuest was going was finding someone who invented/owned or knew about that prior art but never filed for a patent. You can't expect the USPO to know about everything ever invented, only what is patented. If it was invented, but never patented,someone else could claim it (i.e. the Windows GUI that Xerox PARC invented, Apple copied and M$ patented). I think they were onto something, there are way to many obvious things that are patented and thus protected. Software should have copyright protection but not be patented. But that is a whole 'nother argument!
The reasearch community may think highly of the work and it may be the best algorithm in the public domain ever. The Government may not care if they already have what they feel are better algorithms or they know they can break the cyrpto. With massive computing power most cyrpto (except a 1 time pad) can be defeated. The NSA and other agencies have some sense. They hire the best cyrpto minds for a nice sum except they can never publish the results of any work due to National Security. You are right, it is a LIMITED freedom of speech we have, not and absolute one. Having worked at one time in the "black world" I can tell you there is a LOT of really cool stuff in there the public will never know about (and I still can't talk about). But not knowing it does not hurt you in the least.
If you go look at the data, there are a few observations you can make: 1)McBride is not even a top shareholder of this company, so what has he got to lose if things tank, but I bet he has some nice cash bonuses and options if the stock price stays above 20. 2) The officers of the company are selling stock like mad they have sold 136,000 shares in the last 180 days and have bought NONE (other than exercising $2/share options). Mr Olson, the Controller seems to be doing the most selling (bailing out soon?)recently moving over 30K shares. The insider trading over the last 180 days is 2.1% of the total volume, thats awfully high. 3) 46% of the company stock is held by insiders, another 15% by Institutions, and another 3% by well known mutual funds (but no big positions by these funds is shown in the data at Yahoo).
This all says that the broad market does NOT beleive in SCO as someplace to put money and any movement in the stock will be due to the low float causing rapid price swings. The only folks who will be profitting from any SCO runup are the insiders and the institutions, most "speculators" might make some money here and there but not the big bucks like the insiders. This looks very fishy. The comments from Deutsche Bank look like nothing more than doing a favor and running up the stock so officers can dump more, and in the backroom negotiations DB will remind them of that favor and thus will get SCO's business. That too is illegal. I give this whole thing 3-6 months and we'll be reading about the arrests.
Umm, I don't think the Internet has reached plcaes like Cuba and North Korea, it might bring in some unhealthy ideas like freedom and democracy that might warp the brains of the 3 yrs olds and really mess up the 9-22 yr olds who have raging hormones and bad judgement as a result. In the context of some of today's societies, "kiddie porn" and other objectionable material might be OK but democracy sure isn't. So be careful about starting down that road of blocking out "harmful" material lest someone in DC decides your favorite website (like/.) is harmful and should be blocked.
Applying the US Decency Standard to the Internet which extends to many other nations and then expecting them to say "OK" to our rules on p0rn is silly, after all we in the US object quite often when other nations try to impose their rules here. There are so many other things wrong in the world we should be solving instead of wasting energy on something like on-line porn.
Don't forget the labor to unpack, install, checkout and configure the drives, racks and make the cables. Assume you can install and configure about a dozen of the 3,125 drives in an 8 hour day. That'll take you close to a year of labor (but you work cheap right?, so add in 20K for labor), then debugging it will take another year, by then the technology will be obsolete! You could use DVD-Rs instead of HDDs and have less drives but access would be slower and cost would be about the same. The IBM solution must come with some monster drives or with the drives pre-installed and configured.
Filing a suit costs a filing fee, so since the courts are collecting more filing fees due to the RIAA suits shouldn't our taxes be coming down?? If folks would take the RIAA to trial the civil courts would be clogged and nobody could get other cases heard. I dont think that would sit too well with the citizens..."I'm sorry sir but we can't hear your divorce case till six years from next Tuesday as the RIAA cases have our court booked solid". In many civil cases if the plantiff loses they have to pay your[defendant] fees.
Just wait until the RIAA tries to sue a lawyer over his/her downloaded music, all hell may break loose!
Launching a Geosat costs on the order of $300-400M counting the actual cost of the bird. The lanch is about 1/4-1/3 of that on a private launch vehicle such at Titan or Delta, if you want to use the Shuttle, costs are at least an order of magnitude higher. Costs today are on the order of approximately $12,000 per pound of payload delivered to orbit (see http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/launch/eel v_m.htm) . So take a 4-5 ton bird such as we are seeing these days and thats $100-120M. So for 5 Billion you get 40-50, not 100.[2002 had only about 80 launches, of the 80, 19 were GEO orbits from US]
As far as the elevator costs, I suspect most of it will be financed with Gov't money which you might expect a interest rate of 4-5% long term.
How many Sats/day can be launched? That is hard to say as it depends on how long the lift to orbit is, and how long the bird checkout is before being released, but I would say more than 1 is very possible. But what about payloads to/from orbital factories? That would certainly be a large amount, and if it's half the cost of a heavy lift rocket ($6K/lb) and you can send up 50 commercial birds a year [reasonable # based on 2002 data] at 6000 lbs each and transfer 500 payloads of 2000 lbs [2000 lbs would be min load/ price to cover costs] each for comercial interests plus any "special" projects related to National Defense or Science. With this level of use you can offset those interest costs (50*6000*6000 + 500 * 2000 * 6000 = 7.8B revenue) plus cover some operating costs. Add in a few $100M worth of fees for people who want to go into orbit to "visit".
Are these numbers feasible? Maybe, maybe not, over time they certainly would be. You ask how do we find $100B or maybe a $500B for the project over say 10 yrs? It might need to be subsidized by the EU and US Gov'ts [NOT THE UN] at first or some sort of joint public/private venture, but it could be done. Just as an example of where the money could be found look at the FY 2002 DoD budget request was $328.9 billion (NASA got ~15B). The US GDP for 2002 was ~$10 Trillion. The world GDP was about 32 Trillion (worldbank.org). This project could be funded by the US, UK, France and Germany without much effort. $50B/yr out of a combined GDP of $20T is 1/400 of the GDPs, almost invisible!
It may be 25-50 yrs down the road before anyone would attempt construction but that gives lots of time for technologies to mature and funding to be found.
I will look to see if I can find the proceedings from the Int'l Space Elevator Conference that was held recently in Santa Fe, NM (which was sponsored in part by NASA). If I can find some good data there I will post it.
Bottom line is it could be done, could be affordable but likely is 25 yrs away since we need some new technologies. Adding in the political wrangling might add another 10 yrs.
If it was built by a Gov't agency such as NASA oe ESA, you can add a couple orders of magnitude to the cost so figure 100B as an estimate. But because the inefficient Gov't agencies run the "space program" that is why the costs are high.
As for the Three Gorges Dam project, communist countries don't care what the costs are, or if there are more economical ways to do it, the just "make it so". The Gibraltar Bridge could be built in more modern ways than the traditional suspension bride like the Golden Gate thus making it practical but not AFFORDABLE. Those tall towers would be mostly underwater and we can build deep water structures like that (see the Shell offshore oil platform ELF for example). Based on your perspective the Japanese should have never built the huge airport in the middle of the bay just because it was expensive. If you really want to get ambitious there is a idea to build the Bering Strait Bridge which while not as long has much more severe conditions.
I for one wouldn't be upset with someone who could build another space elevator for less if it means better access to space for mankind. The advantages if succesful far outweigh the costs, and even if the project was not 100% successful I think there would be a lot of advancement in material engineering. It might be that certain equatorial countries might actually PAY a firm to place one there, or at least subsidize the operations (think Brazil)which makes the financial risk lower.
If we let the advancement of science and engineering be dictated by pure cash flow economics we would still be sending messages by messengers on horseback instead of the Internet.
I we spent as much on practical things as we spend studying the ozone hole and greenhouse effect from cow farts we might get one of these built someday before I am too old to ride in it (and I'm in my 40's)!
Wow, the million and one-th use for the AOL Free Hours CDs! I feel bad that I have been using sensitive scientific devices as coasters and wind chimes!
Correct, the article I saw said RS-68 was an aerospike, my bad for not verifying the data with a second source. The XRS-2200 is the Linear Aerospike from Rocketdyne.
Well, explain how they can pay someone 1/10th the Salary of a US Programmer then. How can some one live a reasonable life style on that income? FYI, I used to manage some Indian developers on a web site project during the dot com boom, we paid these guys only average wages and to a person they said if they made these wages in India (50-60K) they would be very very well off. They also said the working conditions in India for developers were not good, and we all know a "call center" can be run out of a single room with 8-10 people. So, a 50K windfall would be equal to someone finding $500K in the US. Maybe a million is an overstatement but I know a lot of people who would love another 500K in thier bank account just because they happened to be in the right place at the right time.
If it did it could be more valuable than the call center. If they can find the meteorite and sell it they can retire from the call center business. A nice sized meteorite, which can be the several inches left over from the several VW bugs size before it entered the atmosphere can bring $50K. That would mean the call center owners are millionaires by Indian standards.
I also wonder if this is a true story, dirty ice from leaky plane toilets had been know to cause damages and everyone thought it was a meteorite until it was never found because it melted!
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I saw this idea used in a Dirk Pitt novel about 4-5 yrs ago. Clive Cussler must have had some inside info from the research world, or maybe it was just a wild ass theory that make good fiction. Truth is stranger than fiction!
Why? Because there will be nothing left after they pay legal fees, damages to IBM and have zero sales. I suppose you can file a claim against whatever money the assets that are left bring when they are auctioned off under Chapter 7. After they pay labor claims and legal fees and start working on damages you might get 50 cents. I wonder what that license looks like framed and hung up as a conversation piece! ?
You left out the part about Godzilla saving the commandos and 007 (Pierce Brosnan) from the mutant killer walruses and giant polar bears. Come to find out it was all just another hideous plot by SPECTRE and mini-me to take over the Eskimos.
The M$ suit was tried and decided under the previous administration for the most part, the case stretched on for quite a few years. Anti-trust law is very complicated, and while many cases are filed few are successful. IIRC, the whole case hinged on M$ (illegally) requiring OEMs to include Windows and Windows only on systems sold to consumers thus eliminating choice in the market. The "unbundling" was the remedy that M$ presented as it's method for showing the were not longer forcing Windows onto OEM machines, and thus making the Gov't case moot. Well, what do ya know that all this software that was "unbundled" from Windows requires some part of Windows to work, thus forcing Windows back onto the machine. It was a slick backhanded trick, and it worked! [Side note : Whoever is the President does not write law, Congress does that. Sure the President can suggest certain things but he can rarely make them so ALONE. Seperation of powers was and is a great idea.] I think M$ is abusing it's position but until the Gov't gets better lawyers than the ones M$ has nothing is going to happen. Remember the judge is only allowed to weigh the arguments presented, and we all know M$ is the Master at spinning things thier way via FUD and obfuscation. The Gov't lost this case, M$ didn't win it.
I recall seeing a few years back a system that would take any plastic, add a solvent, pressure and temp and out comes a medium weight oil that can be refined into whatever you like. There is also a system that takes animal byproducts [I thought they were turned into dog food?] and ends up with oil. IIRC, there was an article in Discover magazine about this. Some towns are now drilling for natural gas in old garbage dumps. Is'nt that a form of recycling?
How would you know what information was covered in an NDA unless they told you that it was. If so then they are incredibly stupid and thats the end of the interview. Plus, most companies I have worked for put NDA or "proprietary" on just about everything. I've even seem companies claiming IEEE and DOD specs, and "object oriented software develop process" are covered by NDAs when the info is public knowledge. There has to be some measure of trust that the employee is not breaking an NDA when you hire them. If they are, and you find out and you don't do something to stop it then the hiring company is liable to damages not just the employee. Of course, if they take your technology and run off to China or Taiwan or India and use it, you don't have much chance of getting damages for voilating an NDA. [I'm not a lawyer. I just know enough to know when I need one]
There are a lot of excellent women engineers I know that also enjoy "working with people, children and cooking". In fact, I prefer working with and strive to hire engineers who enjoy things other than "calculating stresses or thermo problems". Companies they are actually looking for more female engineers as often times they work very hard due to remove the impressions like yours that they are "having to do a man's job" (and the fact they can pay them less).
Perhaps what is meant here is that certain situations within your body could cause more (or less) of the drug to be released. I could see things like major stress, or a serious illness screwing up the body chemistry and making the dose change. Also metabolism changes such as significant weight loss/gain, menopause, puberty, etc. might also affect how the dose is released. I think there is a LOT of research to be done before the FDA will let this thing be used except in some very strict conditions. I guess it completely dissolves and you need a new one ever so often (more $$).
Considering the building was being designed probably 10 yrs ago and was already under construction on 9/11/01 I doubt the plane crash scenario was given much thought. The WTC was built to withstand a 727, which was a 1960's era 4 engine jet, much smaller and slower than the 757s that hit the WTC. A 737 is a "baby" jet. Of course there is the 747, C-5, C-17 and some other large Russian jets which are monsters and I'm not sure you could design for a hit from on of these. Maybe there is a super-secret anti-aircraft missile system installed to prevent crashes. I'd be more concerned with a large earthquake or super typhoon causing problems. Taiwan has both of those with some regularity.
Then wouldn't the Space Station be the highest? It has "habitable space". You said nothing about freestanding or being attached to the ground as requirements. ISS also has a hell of an observation deck, but the admission is a bit steep depening on how bad the Russians need money ;)
The "Intel Inside" TV ads, and other media blasts about Intal has convinced those who make the purchasing decisions that there is only one CPU worth anything. The CxO's have been seduced by the ads (sublimal suggestions?). The fact that Intel does NOT have the best chip architecture does not matter. Intel can supply 64-bit CPUs to HP cheaper than HP can make the Aplha and that marks the last days of the Alpha. Why make something no one wants at a cost higher than you can buy a similar product? It's good business sense, but I hate to see good technology ideas die just because they are not mainstream. Intel has a lot of power in the CPU market and they can make you an offer you can't refuse if you want to stay competitive.
Wouldn't the "reward" for finding prior art be the protection of that prior art from infringement? I agree that where BountyQuest was going was finding someone who invented/owned or knew about that prior art but never filed for a patent. You can't expect the USPO to know about everything ever invented, only what is patented. If it was invented, but never patented,someone else could claim it (i.e. the Windows GUI that Xerox PARC invented, Apple copied and M$ patented). I think they were onto something, there are way to many obvious things that are patented and thus protected. Software should have copyright protection but not be patented. But that is a whole 'nother argument!
The reasearch community may think highly of the work and it may be the best algorithm in the public domain ever. The Government may not care if they already have what they feel are better algorithms or they know they can break the cyrpto. With massive computing power most cyrpto (except a 1 time pad) can be defeated. The NSA and other agencies have some sense. They hire the best cyrpto minds for a nice sum except they can never publish the results of any work due to National Security. You are right, it is a LIMITED freedom of speech we have, not and absolute one. Having worked at one time in the "black world" I can tell you there is a LOT of really cool stuff in there the public will never know about (and I still can't talk about). But not knowing it does not hurt you in the least.
They could and would, but if they got caught..
If you go look at the data, there are a few observations you can make: 1)McBride is not even a top shareholder of this company, so what has he got to lose if things tank, but I bet he has some nice cash bonuses and options if the stock price stays above 20. 2) The officers of the company are selling stock like mad they have sold 136,000 shares in the last 180 days and have bought NONE (other than exercising $2/share options). Mr Olson, the Controller seems to be doing the most selling (bailing out soon?)recently moving over 30K shares. The insider trading over the last 180 days is 2.1% of the total volume, thats awfully high. 3) 46% of the company stock is held by insiders, another 15% by Institutions, and another 3% by well known mutual funds (but no big positions by these funds is shown in the data at Yahoo).
This all says that the broad market does NOT beleive in SCO as someplace to put money and any movement in the stock will be due to the low float causing rapid price swings. The only folks who will be profitting from any SCO runup are the insiders and the institutions, most "speculators" might make some money here and there but not the big bucks like the insiders. This looks very fishy. The comments from Deutsche Bank look like nothing more than doing a favor and running up the stock so officers can dump more, and in the backroom negotiations DB will remind them of that favor and thus will get SCO's business. That too is illegal.
I give this whole thing 3-6 months and we'll be reading about the arrests.
Wow, I can now download music faster than the RIAA can file lawsuits! *this sig for rent*
Umm, I don't think the Internet has reached plcaes like Cuba and North Korea, it might bring in some unhealthy ideas like freedom and democracy that might warp the brains of the 3 yrs olds and really mess up the 9-22 yr olds who have raging hormones and bad judgement as a result. In the context of some of today's societies, "kiddie porn" and other objectionable material might be OK but democracy sure isn't. So be careful about starting down that road of blocking out "harmful" material lest someone in DC decides your favorite website (like /.) is harmful and should be blocked.
Applying the US Decency Standard to the Internet which extends to many other nations and then expecting them to say "OK" to our rules on p0rn is silly, after all we in the US object quite often when other nations try to impose their rules here. There are so many other things wrong in the world we should be solving instead of wasting energy on something like on-line porn.
Don't forget the labor to unpack, install, checkout and configure the drives, racks and make the cables. Assume you can install and configure about a dozen of the 3,125 drives in an 8 hour day. That'll take you close to a year of labor (but you work cheap right?, so add in 20K for labor), then debugging it will take another year, by then the technology will be obsolete! You could use DVD-Rs instead of HDDs and have less drives but access would be slower and cost would be about the same. The IBM solution must come with some monster drives or with the drives pre-installed and configured.
Filing a suit costs a filing fee, so since the courts are collecting more filing fees due to the RIAA suits shouldn't our taxes be coming down?? If folks would take the RIAA to trial the civil courts would be clogged and nobody could get other cases heard. I dont think that would sit too well with the citizens..."I'm sorry sir but we can't hear your divorce case till six years from next Tuesday as the RIAA cases have our court booked solid". In many civil cases if the plantiff loses they have to pay your[defendant] fees. Just wait until the RIAA tries to sue a lawyer over his/her downloaded music, all hell may break loose!
Launching a Geosat costs on the order of $300-400M counting the actual cost of the bird. The lanch is about 1/4-1/3 of that on a private launch vehicle such at Titan or Delta, if you want to use the Shuttle, costs are at least an order of magnitude higher. Costs today are on the order of approximately $12,000 per pound of payload delivered to orbit (see http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/launch/eel v_m.htm) . So take a 4-5 ton bird such as we are seeing these days and thats $100-120M. So for 5 Billion you get 40-50, not 100.[2002 had only about 80 launches, of the 80, 19 were GEO orbits from US]
As far as the elevator costs, I suspect most of it will be financed with Gov't money which you might expect a interest rate of 4-5% long term.
How many Sats/day can be launched? That is hard to say as it depends on how long the lift to orbit is, and how long the bird checkout is before being released, but I would say more than 1 is very possible. But what about payloads to/from orbital factories? That would certainly be a large amount, and if it's half the cost of a heavy lift rocket ($6K/lb) and you can send up 50 commercial birds a year [reasonable # based on 2002 data] at 6000 lbs each and transfer 500 payloads of 2000 lbs [2000 lbs would be min load/ price to cover costs] each for comercial interests plus any "special" projects related to National Defense or Science. With this level of use you can offset those interest costs (50*6000*6000 + 500 * 2000 * 6000 = 7.8B revenue) plus cover some operating costs. Add in a few $100M worth of fees for people who want to go into orbit to "visit".
Are these numbers feasible? Maybe, maybe not, over time they certainly would be. You ask how do we find $100B or maybe a $500B for the project over say 10 yrs? It might need to be subsidized by the EU and US Gov'ts [NOT THE UN] at first or some sort of joint public/private venture, but it could be done. Just as an example of where the money could be found look at the FY 2002 DoD budget request was $328.9 billion (NASA got ~15B). The US GDP for 2002 was ~$10 Trillion. The world GDP was about 32 Trillion (worldbank.org). This project could be funded by the US, UK, France and Germany without much effort. $50B/yr out of a combined GDP of $20T is 1/400 of the GDPs, almost invisible!
It may be 25-50 yrs down the road before anyone would attempt construction but that gives lots of time for technologies to mature and funding to be found.
I will look to see if I can find the proceedings from the Int'l Space Elevator Conference that was held recently in Santa Fe, NM (which was sponsored in part by NASA). If I can find some good data there I will post it.
Bottom line is it could be done, could be affordable but likely is 25 yrs away since we need some new technologies. Adding in the political wrangling might add another 10 yrs.
If it was built by a Gov't agency such as NASA oe ESA, you can add a couple orders of magnitude to the cost so figure 100B as an estimate. But because the inefficient Gov't agencies run the "space program" that is why the costs are high. As for the Three Gorges Dam project, communist countries don't care what the costs are, or if there are more economical ways to do it, the just "make it so". The Gibraltar Bridge could be built in more modern ways than the traditional suspension bride like the Golden Gate thus making it practical but not AFFORDABLE. Those tall towers would be mostly underwater and we can build deep water structures like that (see the Shell offshore oil platform ELF for example). Based on your perspective the Japanese should have never built the huge airport in the middle of the bay just because it was expensive. If you really want to get ambitious there is a idea to build the Bering Strait Bridge which while not as long has much more severe conditions. I for one wouldn't be upset with someone who could build another space elevator for less if it means better access to space for mankind. The advantages if succesful far outweigh the costs, and even if the project was not 100% successful I think there would be a lot of advancement in material engineering. It might be that certain equatorial countries might actually PAY a firm to place one there, or at least subsidize the operations (think Brazil)which makes the financial risk lower. If we let the advancement of science and engineering be dictated by pure cash flow economics we would still be sending messages by messengers on horseback instead of the Internet. I we spent as much on practical things as we spend studying the ozone hole and greenhouse effect from cow farts we might get one of these built someday before I am too old to ride in it (and I'm in my 40's)!
Wow, the million and one-th use for the AOL Free Hours CDs! I feel bad that I have been using sensitive scientific devices as coasters and wind chimes!
Correct, the article I saw said RS-68 was an aerospike, my bad for not verifying the data with a second source. The XRS-2200 is the Linear Aerospike from Rocketdyne.
Well, explain how they can pay someone 1/10th the Salary of a US Programmer then. How can some one live a reasonable life style on that income? FYI, I used to manage some Indian developers on a web site project during the dot com boom, we paid these guys only average wages and to a person they said if they made these wages in India (50-60K) they would be very very well off. They also said the working conditions in India for developers were not good, and we all know a "call center" can be run out of a single room with 8-10 people. So, a 50K windfall would be equal to someone finding $500K in the US. Maybe a million is an overstatement but I know a lot of people who would love another 500K in thier bank account just because they happened to be in the right place at the right time.
If you know not Fusial Thrust what is, no Jedi are you! Comes from the Force it does, very strong power, Dark Side it leads to can.
If it did it could be more valuable than the call center. If they can find the meteorite and sell it they can retire from the call center business. A nice sized meteorite, which can be the several inches left over from the several VW bugs size before it entered the atmosphere can bring $50K. That would mean the call center owners are millionaires by Indian standards. I also wonder if this is a true story, dirty ice from leaky plane toilets had been know to cause damages and everyone thought it was a meteorite until it was never found because it melted!